What is the ‘metaverse’? The meaning behind Facebook’s plans to build a VR world
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What is the ‘metaverse’? The meaning behind Facebook’s plans to build a VR world as it announces 10,000 jobs
While Silicon Valley is no stranger to jargon, ‘metaverse’ is one term that’s becoming increasingly familiar.
Facebook, the highest-profile champion of the metaverse, has announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build it. But what exactly is it?
What is the metaverse?
The origins of the metaverse stretch back to 1992, when American author Neal Stephenson coined the term in his seminal and highly influential sci-fi novel Snow Crash to describe what is essentially a virtual reality (VR)-based version of the internet.
The metaverse, according to Stephenson, is a sprawling multiplayer universe that participants traverse using digital avatars, similar to the ideas explored by fellow author William Gibson in 1982 short story Burning Chrome and 1984’s Neuromancer – which went on to heavily influence 1999’s The Matrix.
Ernest Cline expanded upon these fundamenta...
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